I find myself reading something by an author I love because they have such an alluring, engaging writing style and thinking ‘I want to write like this’. But you’re right, then it wouldn’t be your own style or your own voice. Still, I think we can learn from the writers and styles we love, you just can’t model yourself on them and lose your authenticity along the way.x

Seems your words are part of the collective thought. Learn from the authors style you love, but embrace your own originality. That’s what I’ll do as I learn to come into my own. I appreciate your input Caz.

The more books we read, all written by different authors, the more we find to like about writing styles. As we internalize many variations of creative technique, we end up developing our own unique voices, albeit sometimes with an identifiable accent: When I began reading Irish newspapers, I was surprised to discover how much my writing style resembled the way many modern Irish journalists write, when I had never before read anything written by Irish journalists.

One fun way to see how your writer’s voice is developing is to use the text analysis utility at the site called “I Write Like” (https://iwl.me/). It told me that I write like Stephen King (whose fiction I’ve never read) and James Joyce (one of whose novels I tried reading about 45 years ago (yes, that’s forty-five!), and abandoned after a few pages). 😀

I cut and paste my short called Anything For My Followers. The results came back – I write like Agatha Christie! A second story, The New Routine. told me I write like David Foster Wallace. Fascinating! What a fun analysis!

I agree with the two comments above. And we are already influenced by other writers, whether we realize it or not. I find that when I read a lot of someone, my writing sounds a little like theirs for a while. It’s fun to notice. “Great reading makes great writing.” Keep on, my friend.

You will never be someone else’s writing. Likewise, you will always be your own. Improvements and alterations are always optional, because it’s your writing, your choice 🙂 If every writer chose not to do something because another writer has already done so, none of us would be writing.